And maintaining that proper distance can be worse!

I try, and often succeed and generally see risks all around.

Too close, and often with few or no escape paths means maintaining best case attention and response times for the whole drive. That is tiring and usually just not enough.

Too far back means people dropping into the gap non-stop! This too is tiring.

I really hate how this aspect of driving.

I'm not in that much of a hurry, a couple minutes later won't make a difference. I have a friend though, twice in the last year she was rear ended sitting at a red light. Both time the car was totaled. Terrible luck on her part, but not much defensive driving could do for her.